Cricket averages and strike rates: the formulas, not-outs, retired hurt and overs to balls

The five formulas

Every cricket average and rate is one total divided by another: batting average is runs per dismissal, strike rate is runs per 100 balls faced, bowling average is runs per wicket, economy is runs per over and bowling strike rate is balls per wicket. The examples in the table come from the two invented scorecards further down, so each number can be traced.

Two of the five use the same name for different things, so a scorecard's SR has to be read by its column: beside a batter it is runs per 100 balls, beside a bowler it is balls per wicket. The three bowling figures are also locked together: average = economy × strike rate ÷ 6, because runs per over times balls per wicket, divided by the six balls in an over, is runs per wicket. With the figures above, 8.069 × 19.33 ÷ 6 = 26.00.

The formulas themselves are the easy part. New Zealand Cricket's scoring manual, The Scorer's Companion (2016), gives strike rate as "Runs scored divided by their balls faced (Multiplied by 100)" and economy as "Runs conceded divided by their total overs bowled (and include part overs as decimals, e.g. :1 = .166)" (page 23). What changes the answer is what goes into each total: which innings are innings, which are dismissals, which runs belong to the bowler and which balls are balls. The rest of this guide is about those inputs.

How not-outs, retired hurt, retired out and did not bat count

A batting average divides by dismissals, so the only question for each innings is whether it ended in an out. A not-out and a "retired – not out" add their runs and no dismissal; a "retired – out" adds a dismissal; a "did not bat" adds nothing at all, not even an innings.

Two consequences follow, and both surprise people. A not-out never lowers an average: it changes it only by its runs, so 0 not out leaves it exactly where it was. And a batter who has never been out has no average, however many runs they have, because there is nothing to divide by.

Retired hurt and retired out under the Laws and the ICC

"Retired hurt" is the everyday name; the Laws' record is "Retired – not out", and only a retirement for illness, injury or another unavoidable cause earns it. MCC's Law 25.4 lets a batter retire whenever the ball is dead, with the umpires told the reason. Under 25.4.2 a batter who retires for one of those causes "is entitled to resume their innings. If for any reason this does not happen, that batter is to be recorded as 'Retired – not out'." Under 25.4.3, a batter who retires for any other reason may come back only "with the consent of the opposing captain", and if they do not, is "recorded as 'Retired - out'."

International cricket is stricter. The ICC Men's Test Match, ODI and T20I playing conditions, all effective from October 2026, keep 25.4.2 word for word but cut the consent route from 25.4.3: a batter who retires for any other reason "is to be recorded as 'Retired – out'", and clause 25.4.4 lets a retired batter resume only "subject to the requirements of clause 25.4.2". In a club match under the Laws, a retired-out batter can still come back if the other captain agrees.

The record decides the statistics, and the record says not out or out in its own words. A batter who retires hurt on 30 and never returns has a 30 not out in their average. A batter who retires out on 30 has an out, and because retiring is not one of the ways of being dismissed in Laws 32 to 40, no bowler's figures show it. The Laws also use both records for discipline: a batter suspended under Law 42.4.2.3.5 who does not continue is "Retired – not out", and a batter removed from the match for a Level 4 offence is "Retired – out" under 42.5.2.3.3.

A real retirement out shows the effect. On 10 May 2025, the ICC reported, the UAE retired out their whole batting line-up against Qatar in the Women's T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier after an opening stand of 192 in 16 overs, to save time with rain threatened; captain Esha Oza had made 113 from 55 balls. Recorded as retired out, that is an innings ended by an out for her average, and a strike rate of 113 × 100 ÷ 55 = 205.45.

If a retired-hurt batter does come back, the two spells are one innings. The Scorer's Companion tells scorers to pencil in "Retired Hurt" with the runs and balls so far, then, if the batter resumes, to "erase the information entered in pencil and continue scoring as usual" (page 16). The runs from both spells are one score, with one way it ended.

Did not bat, absent, and matches against innings

"Did not bat" is not an innings: the batter has no runs, no balls and no dismissal, and the scorebook leaves those boxes empty. The Scorer's Companion is explicit that scorers should write "Did Not Bat" and "leave their Runs, Minutes, Balls, and 4s & 6s boxes empty (i.e., do not use a zero or a dash)" (page 16), because a 0 would read as an innings of 0. The match still counts in the player's matches played, which is one reason a Test career line can show fewer innings than twice its matches.

"Absent" is the case the sources leave open. A batter who was needed but could not bat through injury or illness is written "Absent" in the How Out box, with the other boxes empty (page 16). It is not a dismissal and nothing is added to runs or balls, so it cannot change an average whichever way it is treated; only the innings count is in question, and neither the Laws nor the ICC's conditions say how to count it. A league's averages should state which way it counts.

The ICC adds one rule for the matches column. When a concussion replacement comes on, "both the Concussion Replacement and the replaced player shall be considered to have played in the match for records and statistical purposes" (clause 1.2.7.9 in each of the three ICC men's playing conditions), so one match can give two players a cap.

Overs to balls: the step every rate depends on

Turn every overs figure into balls before dividing or adding: 3.4 overs is 3 × 6 + 4 = 22 balls, which is 3⅔ overs, not 3.4. The digit after the point counts balls, 0 to 5, because Law 17.1 sets "overs of 6 valid balls" and 17.3.2.3 and 17.3.2.4 say a no-ball or a wide does not count as one of them. The run-rate section of the cricket score counter works the same trap for team totals; for a bowler it does two kinds of damage.

Balls faced and balls bowled are counted differently, and the difference is the no-balls. A batter faces a no-ball, because it can be hit, but not a wide; the Scorer's Companion has scorers check that overs × 6, plus the part over, plus the number of no-balls equals "the number of balls faced (including No Balls but excluding Wides) by all batsmen" (page 11). A bowler's balls are the legal balls in the overs figure, with neither wides nor no-balls in them. A team that bowled three no-balls has faced three more balls than its opponents' bowlers bowled.

The bowler's runs are not the team's runs either. Law 18.10.3 debits the bowler with "all runs scored by the striker", "all runs scored as No ball extras" and "all runs scored as Wides". Byes, leg byes and penalty runs go to the batting side's total but not into any bowler's runs, so they stay out of bowling average and economy. The scorecard abbreviations guide sets out each extra and who it is charged to.

Worked example: one batter's season

The season below is invented for this guide, and it gives the batter 166 runs, 7 innings, 2 not-outs and 5 dismissals: an average of 166 ÷ 5 = 33.20 and a strike rate of 166 × 100 ÷ 130 = 127.69. It was built to hold every case from the table above in eight matches.

Match 8 is worth a second look. The batter was run out as the non-striker before facing a ball: that is an innings and a dismissal, so it pulls the average down, but it adds no balls, so it leaves the strike rate alone. A strike rate cannot be worked out for that innings on its own, since it would mean dividing by zero balls.

Runs per innings is the most common wrong answer, and it is always too low for a batter with not-outs. It treats every not-out as an out, which punishes exactly the batters who finish games. Not-outs are also why a true average can sit above a batter's highest score: 50 not out and 30 out is 80 runs for one dismissal, an average of 80.00. Combining seasons follows the same rule: add the runs and add the dismissals, then divide. Averaging two season averages gives the wrong answer whenever the seasons had different numbers of dismissals, the trap the average calculator's section on averaging averages works through.

Worked example: one bowler's match and season

In the invented match below the bowler finishes with 3.4-0-33-2: 33 runs charged from 22 legal balls, so an economy of 9.00, an average of 16.50 and a strike rate of 11.0. The point of the example is the runs column: 38 runs came off this bowler's deliveries, and five of them are not the bowler's.

The bowler also delivered 25 balls, not 22: the two wides and the no-ball were bowled again, and none counts in the overs figure. Two batters were caught or bowled, which are the bowler's wickets, and a third was run out off the bowling, which is not (Law 38.6). So the figures read 3.4 overs, 0 maidens, 33 runs, 2 wickets.

Season figures come from the season totals: average 78 ÷ 3 = 26.00, economy 78 × 6 ÷ 58 = 8.07 and strike rate 58 ÷ 3 = 19.33. Taking the mean of the three match economies instead gives (5.00 + 9.00 + 12.50) ÷ 3 = 8.83, which gives match C's two overs the same weight as match A's four. The match averages cannot be combined at all: match C has no wickets, so it has no average to add. A bowler with no wickets has an economy but neither a bowling average nor a strike rate.

A real career line, checked: Bradman's 99.94

Don Bradman's Test line is 52 Tests, 80 innings, 10 not-outs, 6,996 runs and a highest score of 334, and 6,996 ÷ (80 − 10) = 99.94, the average printed beside it. The line is the one the Bradman Museum publishes in its Test career overview, and the ICC Hall of Fame gives the same 6,996 runs at 99.94 in 52 Tests. Both checked on 4 November 2026.

The ICC page adds the famous detail: "he needed just four runs in his last Test innings", and was "dismissed for zero". The arithmetic shows exactly what that means, and what it leaves out.

"Four runs" was what he needed only if he was going to be out. Before that innings his line was 6,996 runs and 69 dismissals, an average of 101.39, so a not-out on any score, even 0, would have left him above 100. That is the not-out rule from the first section, played out on the most quoted number in the game. The museum's line gives no balls faced, so no strike rate can be worked out from it.

What this guide does not cover

This guide covers the five individual figures and how each kind of innings feeds them; team rates, rankings and records are other questions. Net run rate, which ranks teams in a competition, is defined in clause 16.10.2 of the ICC's T20I playing conditions and charges a side bowled out early with its full quota of overs; it is not worked through here. Neither are the ICC player rankings, which are not averages, or the qualification rules record books use, such as a minimum number of innings before an average is listed.

Two practical limits apply to any averages you keep yourself. Published statistics show figures to two decimal places, and a league's own playing conditions can vary the Laws, including how retirements are recorded, so a club's averages should say which rules they follow. And an average is only as good as the book behind it: balls faced, the extras column and the How Out box have to be right for every innings first.

Simple Online Counter is a free, browser-based set of counters and calculators; its cricket score counter counts every delivery under the Laws, keeps the extras by type and the team's runs and legal balls, and stores the match in the browser it is used in. It keeps the team score, not each batter's or bowler's figures, so the individual averages in this guide still come from the scorebook.